The Continuum Music Framework by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA, Foundation Books in the Series

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Sarnia de la Mare

The Continuum Music Framework™ (2 books)

Kindle edition

by Sarnia de la Mare (Author)

The Continuum Music Framework

by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA

The Continuum Music Framework is an open, adaptive pedagogy for musical learning, designed to support musicians of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Rather than promoting pressure, competition, or rigid outcomes, the Framework offers a humane, inclusive approach that recognises learning as a living process—one shaped by individuality, environment, and emotional safety.

Rooted in contemporary pedagogical thinking and decades of artistic practice, the Continuum Music Framework works alongside existing methods rather than replacing them. It encourages musical confidence through clarity, agency, and early creative engagement, including composition as a central part of learning from the very beginning.

Each book in the series explores a different layer of the Framework.
Part I, Foundations, introduces The Continuum Approach—a gentle yet rigorous entry point that focuses on mindset, environment, pacing, and the conditions that allow learning to take root. Later volumes expand into structures, studies, and applied pathways, supported by optional scores, diagrams, and teaching tools available separately.

The Continuum Music Framework is intended for independent learners, educators, parents, and returning musicians alike. It is not a method to be mastered, but a framework to grow within—one that values curiosity over compliance, and continuity over perfection.

All the titles below are free to borrow with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Learn more.

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Before the First Note is Played | iServalan™ | Continuum Approach

 Before the First Note: Why We Begin With Understanding, Not Instruction

Every serious learning journey has a beginning point.
Not a timetable.
Not a method book.
Not a demand.

A beginning.

The Continuum Approach begins before sound.

Before scales, before reading, before technique — we begin with relationship.

Because no instrument is neutral.

An instrument is a body.
It has weight, shape, resistance, temperament.
It occupies space.
It asks something of the person who meets it.

To place a child — or an adult — in front of an instrument without context, without consent, without curiosity, is not education.
It is exposure without orientation.

And exposure without orientation breeds doubt.

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The First Arc: Encounter and Bond

The earliest stage of learning is not playing.
It is meeting.

We strongly recommend that learners — especially children — encounter as many instruments as possible before choosing one.

This may mean:

• Seeing them

• Touching them

• Hearing them played live

• Feeling their scale and physical presence

• Sensing how the sound moves through the room and the body

This process need not be formal.
It need not be long.
It simply needs to be real.

A child should never be handed an instrument chosen for them without their inclusion.
Choice made in isolation — by timetable, convenience, or availability — often creates resistance long before learning begins.

Adults, by nature, are autonomous.
Yet even here, the same principle holds.

Trying, listening, observing, and experiencing instruments allows an initial bond — or spark — to emerge.
Sometimes quickly.
Sometimes unexpectedly.

This is not indecision.
It is orientation.

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Listening as a Constant

At this stage, listening becomes paramount.

Not analytical listening.
Not technical listening.

But simple, embodied listening.

How does the instrument sound?
How does it feel when played by another?
What kind of music seems to belong to it?
What emotional temperature does it carry?

Listening does not end when playing begins.
It remains a constant throughout the entire continuum of learning.

Before reading.
Before technique.
Before self-judgement.

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Familiarity Before Instruction

Before the first deliberate sound is made by the learner, there must be familiarity.

With:

• The shape of the instrument

• How it rests in space

• How the body relates to it

• Where tension might arise

• Where ease might live

This might take:

• A full lesson

• Five minutes at the beginning of each session

• Or it may already be present when a student arrives

There is no fixed duration.

The only requirement is this:
doubt and fear must be abolished before instruction begins.

Not managed.
Not negotiated.

Abolished.

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Oneness Before Noise

We do not begin with noise.
We do not begin with music.

We begin with oneness.

The feeling that:

• the instrument is not an adversary

• the body is not being judged

• sound is not yet a test

Only when this relationship is established does playing make sense.

Only then does reading music have somewhere to land.

Only then does discipline become possible without strain.

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What Comes Next

Once this arc is complete — once familiarity, listening, and bond are present — the next arc may begin.

Reading.
Structure.
Sound-making.
Music.

But never before.

Because technique built on fear collapses.
And instruction without relationship does not endure.

The prospect of losing faith becomes the most likely scenario.

This is not a delay.
It is a foundation.

And it is where all relaxed, sustainable learning truly begins.

🎙️ The Cello: Naming the Body, Claiming the Space | iServalan™ | Continuum Approach

 This essay accompanies an audio episode from iServalan and forms part of a wider approach to learning music through listening, movement, and attention.

🎙️ The Cello: Naming the Body, Claiming the Space

Before we play a single note,
before we worry about whether we’re doing anything “right”,
we need to meet the instrument properly.

Not romantically.
Practically.

Because knowing the names of things matters —
not so that you memorise them,
but so that when I say them, you know where we are.

Think of this as learning the map,
not the route.

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The Body of the Cello

Let’s start at the top.

At the very top of the cello is the scroll.
It’s decorative, yes, but it also tells you which way the instrument is facing.
Below the scroll are the pegs, one for each string.
They’re used for tuning — slowly, carefully — and they sit in the pegbox.

From there, the instrument narrows into the neck, which leads into the fingerboard.
The fingerboard is smooth and unfretted.
There are no markings to tell you where notes “should” be —
this is an instrument that trains listening, not guessing.

At the end of the fingerboard is the nut,
a small but crucial point where the strings begin their vibrating length.

Now the cello opens out into its main body.

The front is called the top plate or soundboard.
Cut into it are the two f-holes — these are not decoration.
They are how the instrument breathes.

Running down the centre is the bridge.
The bridge is not glued down — it stands under tension, held in place by balance alone.
It transfers the vibration of the strings into the body of the cello.

At the bottom, the strings pass over the tailpiece,
anchored by the tailgut,
and finally disappear into the endpin,
which extends down to the floor and connects the cello to gravity.

Inside the cello — unseen, but essential —
are the bass bar and the soundpost,
which support, distribute, and shape the sound.

You don’t need to remember all of this today.
You just need to know what I mean when I say the words.

That’s enough.

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The Bow

Now the bow.

The long wooden part is the stick.
The white hair is — quite literally — horsehair.
At the bottom is the frog,
where your hand rests,
and at the very end is the screw,
which adjusts the tension.

The bow is not a separate tool.
It is part of your body while you’re playing.

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Sitting With the Cello

Now we sit.

You sit towards the front of the chair, not the back.
Feet flat on the floor.
The cello leans gently against your chest — it does not cling, and you do not grip.

The endpin should be long enough that the cello feels tall, not cramped.
If you feel compressed, something needs adjusting.

Your knees support the cello lightly.
Your spine rises naturally.
Your shoulders soften.

This is not a small instrument.
It does not ask you to shrink.

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Taking Up Space: The Orb

This is where something important happens.

String playing — especially cello — requires space.
Not just physical space, but permission.

Imagine an orb around you.
Like a planet with its own gravity.

Your feet are part of this orb.
So is your pelvis.
Your spine.
Your shoulders.
Your head.

Your elbows move within this space.
Your hands.
Your bow arm.
The arc of the bow itself.

Nothing should feel trapped.
Nothing should feel apologetic.

The cello needs room to vibrate.
You need room to move.

If you make yourself small,
the sound becomes small too.

So you demand your orbit.

Quietly.
Calmly.
Without aggression.

You are allowed to be here.

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What Comes Next

Now — and only now —
do we have what we need.

Not music yet.
Not repertoire.

But the tools.

A named body.
A balanced seat.
Space to move.
Breath.

Now we can make a noise.

Our noise.
Our sound.

And once that sound exists,
the world will listen.

©2025 Sarnia de la Maré | Continuum Method 

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